Democracy Now! stories, posts and pages that relate to the National Security Agency, including interviews with NSA whistleblowers William Binney, Thomas Drake and Russell Tice as well as reporter Glenn Greenwald who exposed the secret PRISM spy operation.

"At this stage I can offer nothing more than my word. I am a senior government employee in the intelligence community. I hope you understand that contacting you is extremely high risk … This will not be a waste of your time." This was one of the first messages Edward Snowden wrote to filmmaker Laura Poitras beginning an exchange that helped expose the massive surveillance apparatus set up by the National Security Agency. Months...

Watch the trailer for "CitizenFour," the new documentary about Edward Snowden, directed by Laura Poitras, who joins us Thursday. Watch past interview on Democracy Now! about how she faced harassment from U.S. agents long before she helped expose NSA spying.

We spend the hour with veteran New York Times investigative reporter James Risen, the journalist at the center of one of the most significant press freedom cases in decades. In 2006, Risen won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting about warrantless wiretapping of Americans by the National Security Agency. He has since been pursued by both the Bush and Obama administrations in a six-year leak investigation into that book, "State of War: The...

New York Times investigative reporter James Risen faces jail time if he refuses to name a whistleblowing source, but he insists the actual whistleblowers, including Edward Snowden, are “much more courageous that we reporters are." Risen won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting about warrantless wiretapping of Americans by the National Security Agency. "We revealed the framework for … how the Bush administration turned the NSA on the...

A new report by The Intercept news site reveals the National Security Agency is secretly providing troves of data to nearly two dozen government agencies using a "Google-like" search engine. Documents from Edward Snowden provide proof that for years the NSA has made data directly available to domestic law enforcement agencies like the Drug Enforcement Administration and FBI. The search tool, known as ICReach, contains information on...

Earlier this month, The Intercept published documents provided by Edward Snowden that revealed the deep ties between Israeli and U.S. intelligence agencies. In a recent article, journalist Glenn Greenwald cites one 2013 document that described a "far-reaching technical and analytic relationship" between the National Security Agency and its Israeli counterpart against "mutually agreed upon geographic targets." The...

Glenn Greenwald’s latest article for The Intercept is headlined "NPR Is Laundering CIA Talking Points to Make You Scared of NSA Reporting." Greenwald takes a highly critical look at a story by NPR’s counterterrorism correspondent, Dina Temple-Raston, which aired on Morning Edition earlier this month. Temple-Raston’s report focused on claims by the tech firm Recorded Future that it has "tangible evidence" that...

The Obama administration has expanded the national terrorist watchlist system by approving broad guidelines over who can be targeted. A leaked copy of the secret government guidebook reveals that to be deemed a "terrorist" target, "irrefutable evidence or concrete facts are not necessary." Both "known" and "suspected" suspects are tracked, and terrorism is so broadly defined that it includes people...